Kwei Quartey - Murder at Cape Three Points

Bonsa maintained his silence. He had closed his eyes and appeared to be in a trance. Abruptly, one of the attendants held the door open for the two detectives to leave. The meeting was officially over.

DAWSON AND CHIKATA didn’t speak until they were back in the taxi.

“Agh,” the sergeant said. “That was unpleasant. I don’t like that man.”

“Strange atmosphere in there,” Dawson agreed. He glanced at Baah, who was staying silent.

“Why did you make up that story about a man consulting Bonsa about his dying daughter?” Chikata asked.

“It popped into my head,” Dawson replied. “What if, out of desperation during the final days of Angela’s fatal illness, Jason Sarbah consulted a fetish priest? From the way Bonsa responded, it seems I hit a nerve. So maybe Jason did go to a fetish, but he went to a quack and Bonsa heard the story.”

“Then why didn’t he want to confirm whether or not it was Jason?”

“Because I don’t think he wants to get involved. It’s like if a TV reporter or someone like that came to you and asked about a corrupt policeman. Even if you’d heard something about it, you might not want to talk about it with someone like that because of the mess it would drag you into.”

“True,” Chikata said. “Okay, so, let’s say Jason goes to the quack priest. And then?”

“And then this imposter fetish priest recommends to Jason that he perform a human sacrifice on the man who denied him money for the operation Angela needed. There’s no way Jason can do this himself, so he hires two or three people to do it.”

“So now we have to go looking for a quack fetish priest Jason went to see? That could take us years.”

“There’s a much easier way,” Dawson said, taking out his phone. “We’re going to ask Jason himself about it.”

BY THE TIME Jason appeared at the Takoradi central police station with his lawyer, it was well past nightfall. Dawson had reached him at a pool party at Planter’s Lodge, an upscale hotel not far from Shippers Circle. Jason had sounded annoyed that Dawson wanted to question him.

“Can you give me a couple of hours?” he asked.

“Yes, all right,” Dawson replied, but when he had hung up, he began to worry. Why did Jason need a couple of hours? He dispatched Chikata and Baah immediately to Planter’s Lodge, instructing them to park discreetly outside the entrance and watch for Jason. Dawson wanted to be sure he didn’t bolt.

He didn’t. It turned out that he needed time to contact his lawyer and have him accompany Jason to the station. The lawyer, Calvin DeGraft, was contracted with Malgam Oil.

Smart man to come with DeGraft , Dawson thought.

They met in the CID room, Jason and DeGraft sitting opposite Dawson and Chikata.

“What is this about, Inspector?” the lawyer asked. He was a large, imposing man with a razor edge to his voice. “Today is Sunday. This is a considerable disruption of my client’s leisure time.”

“I do apologize for that, sir,” Dawson said. “However, we need to ask your client some questions, if you would allow it.”

“Go ahead. Please be brief.”

“Mr. Sarbah, we’ve learned that during or around April, you visited a fetish priest seeking a cure for your daughter’s illness.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Did you go to a fetish priest about Angela’s illness, sir?”

“Is this some kind of joke?” Jason snapped. “You brought me here to ask this ridiculous question?”

“Can you please answer?”

“No, Mr. Sarbah is not going to answer this question,” DeGraft cut in. “I will not allow it.”

“What about a fetish priest called Kweku Bonsa?” Dawson tried again. “Are you familiar with him, Mr. Sarbah?”

“He won’t answer anything related to fetish priests,” DeGraft said. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Was human sacrifice ever considered in order to save Angela’s life?”

Jason flinched and his eyes swelled and moistened.

“You’re an offensive man, Inspector,” DeGraft said coldly. “You know very well that Angela’s death is a painful chapter in Mr. Sarbah’s life. These questions are not only unnecessary, they are deliberately cruel.”

“It wasn’t my intention to offend,” Dawson said quietly. “I apologize.”

“Is my client under arrest?”

“No, sir.”

“Then we are leaving.” DeGraft stood up. “Come along, Jason.”

They left in silence. Chikata sneaked a glance at Dawson and then meekly returned his gaze to the table.

“Okay,” Dawson said. “I admit it didn’t go well, but I think it was worth a try.”

“Yes,” Chikata said slowly, obvious doubt in his voice.

Feeling deflated all of a sudden, Dawson stood up with a sigh. “I’m tired. Let’s go home. We have another long day tomorrow.”

THIS IS IT , DAWSON thought.

For the first time in his life, he was going to be airborne. As he took his seat in the first row behind the pilot and co-pilot of one of Malgam’s NHV Dauphin helicopters, his nervousness made his stomach churn.

A few minutes past seven in the morning, Dawson and the five other passengers had watched a ten-minute safety video in the helicopter administration waiting room of Takoradi’s small airport. Thereafter, they had donned their life jackets and boarded the van that transported them to the helicopter on the tarmac. Dawson had always pictured a helicopter as a smallish machine, but up close to the Dauphin, he realized how mistaken he had been.

Now he was duplicating all the steps that he had seen on the video-fastening the four-point seatbelts, putting on the protective headphones, checking the large exit window to his right, and mentally rehearsing how to release the window seal and push it out in an emergency. He went through the safety leaflet in the seat pocket in front of him, realizing that his hands were trembling. He surreptitiously glanced at the passenger to his right, afraid that his nerves were showing. He need not have worried. The sixty-ish expatriate with an expanding belly was reading a magazine and showing no interest in anyone around him.

The helicopter door closed. Dawson watched the pilot as he pressed buttons and flicked switches on a bewildering console of dials, levers, and screen displays in front of him and overhead. Dawson was startled as the engine started, a low rumble rising quickly to a high whine and finally a pulsating roar.

On the ground in front of the Dauphin, a man in overalls signaled to the pilot. For a moment, Dawson thought he felt the craft moving, dismissed it as his imagination playing tricks on him, and then realized they were indeed already about ten feet off the ground. The pilot kept the Dauphin there for a few seconds while he and the co-pilot performed some final checks, and then he shifted the helicopter sideways, a maneuver Dawson found disconcerting. The helicopter pivoted and went forward to the runway, where the pilot turned it again, tipped it slightly forward, and accelerated into a climb. Much more rapidly than Dawson had expected, he had a full view of the city: a patchwork of urban construction and green space.

He could already see the Atlantic ahead and then both the Sekondi and Takoradi harbors. They were climbing higher still, and he closed his eyes for a moment. When the vertigo passed, it was replaced by his awe at the magnificence of the ocean beneath them. Stretching to infinity, its surface reflected the golden arc of the early morning sun. He spotted only a rare trawler, canoe, or flat-decked supply ship, but as the Dauphin began to approach the Thor Sterke some thirty minutes later, the picture changed. He saw four drilling rigs over a wide area. Dotted around them like worker ants attending their queen were several vessels, some of which Dawson guessed were the fishery protection vessels he had read about in the docket reports.